Army to reshape training of soldiers

NEW YORK TIMES

May 5, 2012

WASHINGTON - The Army is reshaping the way many soldiers are trained and deployed, with some conventional units to be placed officially under Special Operations commanders and others assigned to regions of the world viewed as emerging security risks, particularly in Africa.

The pending changes reflect an effort to institutionalize many of the successful tactics adopted ad hoc in Afghanistan and Iraq. And as the Army shrinks by 80,000 troops over the next five years, its top officer, Gen. Ray Odierno, also is seeking ways to ensure that the land force is prepared for a broader set of missions - and in hot spots around the globe where few soldiers have deployed in the past.

Odierno's initiatives are a recognition that the role - and clout - of Special Operations forces is certain to grow over coming years, and senior Pentagon policymakers briefed on the plans say they are fully in keeping with the new military strategy announced early this year by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

With cuts ordered in the Pentagon budget - and cognizant of public exhaustion with large overseas deployments - the military will focus on working with partner nations to increase their capabilities to deal with security threats within their borders.

Shift to Special Ops

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The goal would be to limit the footprint of most new overseas deployments. Those scenarios would reflect a shift from conventional forces to Special Operations forces, and Odierno's plans would increase the support of Army general-purpose units to those types of missions.

Creating new sets of formal relationships between Army general-purpose units and the Special Operations Command would be a significant change in Army culture. For more than a generation, the large, conventional Army and the small, secretive commando community viewed each other from a distance, and with distrust.

Armor and infantry units trained and operated separately from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency teams.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed that. The demands of combining high-end conventional combat and counter­insurgency missions for complementary and overlapping missions in Afghanistan and Iraq pushed conventional and Special Operations forces together.

Odierno, who now serves as Army chief of staff, oversaw many of those tactical initiatives firsthand.

He was a division commander in northern Iraq when Saddam Hussein was captured there in a mission that combined armored units and the elite counterterrorism force. And during his tours as the No. 2 and then the top commander in Iraq, he integrated conventional and Special Operations missions on a daily basis.

Under the emerging plans, conventional Army units would train alongside Special Operations units, and would deploy with them, under their command, on overseas missions.

Regional expertise

Other units would remain in the conventional force, but would be told in advance that their deployments would focus on parts of the world, like Africa, that do not currently have Army units assigned to them. This would allow officers and soldiers to develop regional expertise.

The first unit to be designated for this new regional orientation will be a full brigade that will train for missions under the command of the military's Africa Command, Army and Pentagon officials said.

Formalizing what had been impromptu ties between conventional units and Special Operations forces was a focus of official "Warfighter Talks" conducted in February by Odierno and Adm. William McRaven, the Texas native who leads the Special Operations Command. The Army has held similar, chief-to-chief talks with the other armed services, but it was not the norm with the commando community's top officer.

Odierno and McRaven have pledged to make the formal dialogue an annual event, Army officials said.

The Army contributes more than half of all personnel to Special Operations Command. But even as the Army shrinks, its Special Operations personnel roster is slated to grow to 35,000 from 32,000, officials said.

The conventional force can vastly increase the capability of Special Operations units by providing logistical support to those teams in the field. Transportation, security, medical evacuation, food, fuel and other logistics needs are routinely provided to Special Operations units by the conventional force.

More specifically, in Afghanistan today, for example, two conventional Army battalions are assigned in support of Special Operations units carrying out a program called Village Stability Operations, which trains and teams with local security forces.

Formal training linking a conventional unit to a Special Operations unit will begin in June at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., Army officials said.